The shadow message store and processor can be located in the cloud, or on premises. In some embodiments, the shadow message store is a repository that is hosted on an AWS instance in the organization's trusted extended network. The shadow message store can retrieve copies of emails from the organization's server and retains those copies for a pre-set number of days. At the end of the period, the copies are deleted from shadow message store. In some embodiments, the shadow message store is a local repository of messages, separate from an organization's mail server, such as the organization's Microsoft Exchange Server. In some embodiments, the shadow message store and processor can be integrated into the enterprise email server. In such embodiments, the parsed message store may be combined with the enterprise email server storage.
In some embodiments, the message store can be configured to store all or substantially all of the messages that are processed by the shadow message store and processor. In such embodiments, the messages can be stored into MIME parts, such as attachments, body, and headers. In alternative embodiments, the message store can be configured to store selected components of messages, in lieu of entire messages. As a non-limiting example, the message store can be configured to store a subset of the message, such as metadata of the message, such as headers, or information about attachments, such as hashes of attachments. Such an embodiment has the advantage of requiring substantially less storage space.